Sitecore Experience Edge — Part 1: Getting started
What is Sitecore Experience Edge in a nutshell ?
Getting the right content to the right customers at the right time, is at the heart of any digital business strategy. Sitecore Experience Edge enables just this.
It is an easy to use, fully managed service to deliver content at scale to any channel which other applications can consume, and thus assist with modern development techniques like Headless CMS’es & JAMStack sites.
In this blog, we will cover highlights of what Sitecore Experience Edge actually is and how this technology can add value to businesses.
Depending on the Sitecore solution an organization has invested in, there are two flavours of Experience Edge delivery:
- Sitecore Experience Edge for Content Hub — Experience Edge makes Content Hub data available on the cloud. Using GraphQL endpoints, this content can then be easily exposed to multiple digital channels (i.e. mobile, web, IoT devices or smart wearables), without the need for any connectors
- Sitecore Experience Edge for Sitecore Experience Manager(XM) — Instead of a typical self-hosted Content Delivery Server, standard publishing will publish content to Experience Edge. This published content can then be accessed by a digital channel through Sitecore-hosted GraphQL APIs hosted and managed by Sitecore (SaaS) to access Items, Layout and Media. Utilising Sitecore Edge for XM allows marketers to publish static Sitecore JSS sites, while also delivering content to headless sites in real-time.
Traditional Sitecore Headless(JSS) v/s Sitecore Experience Edge
As depicted below, in a traditional Sitecore headless platform, a Content Author would create content on the Sitecore Content Management Interface and publish content directly to a publishing target (typically a web database). A rendering host would then retrieve the published content to render UI for the websites.
However, with Experience Edge, the content is published to the Sitecore Experience Edge delivery platform through a connector installed on the CM instance. The published content can then be accessed through GraphQL APIs to render the UI.
Does Sitecore Experience Edge replace Sitecore JavaScript Services (JSS) and Headless services?
It is important to note that the Sitecore Experience Edge does not replace Sitecore JavaScript Services (JSS). In fact, the existing JavaScript and ASP.NET Core SDKs are intended to be used along with Sitecore Experience Edge.
Sitecore Experience Edge platform actually replaces the need for the presentation layer to directly call the Sitecore Headless services that traditionally run on a content delivery instance. Instead, the presentation layer can now call Experience Edge, which will have a static copy of the data needed — thus enabling advantages typical to centralized content management & delivery.
Who can benefit from Experience Edge
- Business looking to go Headless with JAMStack as part of their digital strategy. JAMStack architecture reduces cost, complexity, and risk of dynamic servers as critical infrastructure
- Organizations looking at highly scalable, responsive and fast performing Content-as-a-Service offerings — ‘Content at speed’ means higher conversions
- Businesses requiring flexibility in terms of omni-channel delivery and choice of content delivery networks
- Businesses looking to achieve centralisation of content for greater reusability, flexible modelling and scalability
- Eliminates the need for Sitecore XM CD servers when using the LayoutService for “static” content (i.e., content with no need for personalization and other features requiring user context)
Limitations of Experience Edge
- Experience Edge for XM does not execute or support Sitecore personalization rules or content testing.
- Experience Edge at the moment supports only Solr
- No support for Sitecore publishing service or Azure Search
FAQ
